Google Pays $5.5M To No One: Cy Pres Problems & Expert Cures

The National Law Review reports on CEI’s Center for Class Action Fairness’s objection to a Google class action settlement. 

Class members claim Google used computer code to circumvent privacy settings, allowing advertisers and third parties to track their cookies and browsing activities. In settlement, Google offered to pay $5.5 million to a handful of internet technology and privacy rights institutions for internet privacy research. Class counsel agreed. With all advocates on board, the settlement was set to go through until the Center for Class Action Fairness at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) filed an objection on December 20, 2016 on behalf of class member Theodore H. Frank.

The CEI pointed out to the court that Google has made significant corporate contributions to the same internet technology institutions before. The settlement would not be forcing Google to do anything that it would not have already planned to do. Notably, the CEI also exposed some relationships between the fund recipients and class counsel, namely that one of the class counsel currently sits on the board of one of the cy pres recipients. Class counsel defended the cy pres proposal, arguing the class members would number in the millions and be nearly impossible to track down. In addition, the cost to distribute the funds to each member would likely exceed the nominal amount to be awarded to each.

In settlement, Google offered to pay $5.5 million to a handful of internet technology and privacy rights institutions for internet privacy research.

The CEI claims that Google has made significant corporate contributions to the same internet technology institutions before. The settlement would not be forcing Google to do anything that it would not have already planned to do.

Read the full article at The National Law Review.